Car bomb kills 10 in Iraq's Diyala -police

BAGHDAD, June 3 (Reuters) A suicide car bomber killed 10 people and wounded 30 in a busy market in a volatile region northeast of Baghdad today, police said.

The bomber targeted a convoy of police vehicles as it drove through a market area in the town of Balad Ruz, about 50 km (30 miles) southeast of Diyala province's capital Baquba, said Balud Ruz police chief Colonel Faris Hussein.

Two police officers were among the dead, he said. At least 10 cars, six of them police vehicles, were destroyed by fire, Hussein said.

In a separate incident today, gunmen at a fake checkpoint killed five people and wounded seven others when they opened fire on two minibuses near Baquba.

Diyala is a large, religiously and ethnically mixed province which has seen some of the worst violence in Iraq since the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in March 2003.

Sectarian killings and attacks by al Qaeda occur regularly in Diyala, which is a mainly Sunni Arab province but also has significant Shi'ite and Kurdish populations.

About 3,000 extra US troops have been sent to Diyala to combat a recent spike in violence.

Figures released yesterday showed that nearly 2,000 civilians had been killed in Iraq in May, a 29 per cent hike on April and the highest monthly toll since the start of a security crackdown in Baghdad and other areas in February.

The crackdown is a last-ditch attempt to drag Iraq back from the brink of all-out sectarian civil war.

It is also meant to buy time for Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government to meet a series of political targets set by Washington aimed at promoting national reconciliation.

REUTERS LPB RK1500